Derrick Rose was still on his old-TV-money contract extension in 2015, when players began to reap the rewards of a rapidly escalating salary cap. Then with the Bulls, Rose brought up his 2017 free agency and expectation that he’d earn a major payday.

Turns out, Rose settled for a one-year minimum contract with the Cavaliers last summer.

“I get a chance to reintroduce myself back to the league. I get to bet on myself. That was one of the reasons I came here, I get to bet on myself. And I’m from Chicago, I’ve got that hustling side; it’s in me, man. Next time you’ve got to pay me, you’ve got to pay me double, so it’s fine with me.”

Rose is earning $2,116,955 this season. Doubling that would put him around the full room exception. Players to receive that last offseason: Ron Baker, Jamal Crawford and Aron Baynes.

I can get behind Rose on this. If he plays well this year, the injury-prone, weak-defensive, poor-outside-shooting point guard might just get the room exception in free agency next summer.

Fultz has been dealing with soreness in his right shoulder, which caused him to miss Friday’s preseason game, but he “can’t recall” when he first felt the pain. After Monday’s game against the Celtics, he said the shoulder has been hurting “on and off.” “I talk to trainers when it bothers me, and they get right to it and start working on it,” Fultz said. “When it’s not, I’m happy. Either way, I’m happy and I just go out and play.”

After Fultz left the locker room, I asked him if the shoulder issue motivated him to revise his free throw mechanics, to minimize the pain he feels when he raises his arm. Fultz said, “Yeah, for the most part. I’m just trying other things to make free throws. At the end of the day, that’s not an excuse for me. I’m just out there hooping.”

The big question: Is Fultz developing bad habits while playing through his shoulder injury?

If he’s just pushing up free throws for now so he can play and hone other parts of his game, OK. It’s the preseason. Heck, Philadelphia could probably afford him playing through that flaw in the regular season.

But if Fultz is screwing up his stroke, that’d be a major concern – especially if it flows into his shooting from the floor. If that’s the case, the 76ers should sit him.

It’s almost impossible to tell which is the case from afar and maybe even from the inside while Fultz’s shoulder is still bothering him. The 76ers just have to hope they’re handling this correctly.

“Oh yeah, yeah, I tried,” Rose said after shootaround Tuesday. “People always said that I didn’t recruit. I tried to recruit. I put out the video, but, it wasn’t for me to say that. I felt like it was for the organization to say that.”

Rose said he filmed a video in which he recruited the big three to join him on a Bulls team that had a young core of Luol Deng, Taj Gibson and Joakim Noah already.

When asked why this revelation was just coming to light now, Rose replied, “I just wanted to see who had my back,” presumably referring to members of the Bulls front office that could have corrected the perception that Rose was hands-off by telling the media about the video that was filmed.

Rose said he is unaware if the video was ever viewed by James, Wade and Bosh.

“(The Bulls) didn’t say anything about it,” Rose said. “They sent it, I don’t know if they really actually looked at it or played the video, but, I made the video, but at the time it really wasn’t for me to say that.”

Rose clearly didn’t want to alienate his Chicago teammates by openly recruiting outside free agents, a noble sentiment. The Bulls would have had to shed salary to clear room for two max free agents, let alone three.

But what did Rose expect the narrative to be when he said things like “as far as recruiting, I never did and never will”?

Bulls management had similar incentives to show loyalty to incumbent players. Rose probably would have been ticked if someone from the front office discussed the video publicly.

Rose chose to hide his recruiting efforts, which might have improved team chemistry but also painted him a star uneager to share the spotlight. It’s nice that he set the record straight now, but after he extracted all the positives of his misleading statements, there’s no reason to feel bad he also dealt with some negative perception.

the Nuggets will be retiring legendary player Lafayette “Fat” Lever’s #12 jersey on Saturday, December 2, 2017 vs. the Los Angeles Lakers.

“With what Fat Lever has meant to this team, this city and our community for the past 30-plus years, it makes perfect sense to honor him by retiring his jersey during this special season,” Kroenke stated. “He is not only one of the best Nuggets in franchise history, but a great ambassador of Denver basketball as well. It is going to be an honor to have his jersey hanging in our arena.”

Lever had a fine six-season stint with Denver, making an All-NBA second team, an All-Defensive second team and a couple All-Star teams. His Nuggets teams made the playoffs each season and peaked with a trip to the 1985 Western Conference finals, though they were already perennial postseason participants be he arrived. Lever is Denver’s all-time leader in steals, and he ranks second in assists, seventh in points and even eighth in rebounds. Not bad for a 6-foot-3 point guard.

The timing is questionable, but Lever is a reasonable choice to join Alex English (2), David Thompson (33), Byron Beck (40), Dan Issel (44), Dikembe Mutombo (55) and Doug Moe (432) with a number in the rafters.